It is now about four months since my love of my life, my wife of 50 years, unexpectedly passed away from a brain cancer that roared out of nowhere. For most of these four months I can perhaps best describe my condition as being in shock, not knowing what to do, how to do it, or why. The question of “why” should I do anything is almost overwhelming. It turns out that we had grown so close over all those years that we were no longer separate individuals, we were “us” in very deep and important ways.

Now I find myself feeling much less “whole” that just 50%, it is much closer to 0% – I feel like I just don’t exist at all. There is nothing to strive for, nothing to care about, no purpose or goal worth pursuing. Not just “bla” but closer to empty.

However, I find that I am slowly getting past the recurring bouts of agonizing grief, having entire hours at a time without chocking up, crying, or just going into stunned silence. I am slowly starting to beginning to seriously ask the question of “what now?” I have been asking that since her death, but more as an agonizing cry with the answer being “nothing”. Now I am starting to wonder what I could, or should, but doing to get some sort of meaning back into my life. I am asking questions along the lines of “do I do things to please myself, or do I do things to help others, or is it best to try to please others?” Am I meditating every day with the goal of becoming personally “enlightened”, or would it be better to focus on the “enlightenment” of society? Should I be feather my own nest, or would it be better to attend to the feathers of others individually, or as a group?

During this time I rented a house in a nearby town so I could leave “our” home when it becomes overwhelming and go to a different environment. That has been helpful, but now I am finding myself wondering what sort of “forever home” I should be searching for. What are the things that I should be considering? Should I be worrying about a future of disabilities as an old man? If so, what would that look like? Is it even time to be considering a “final” home, and if not, how will I know when the time has come to make a choice?

I am still in mental limbo, I would describe it as “long covid brain fog” if I had covid, but so far I have skirted that. Thank goodness, I can’t image what it would be like to both of covid fog on top of the existential loss of my partner. I believe the term “existential” is correct in this situation, the “me” that existed as “we” no longer exists- all of a sudden the “me” that I recognized is gone. I need to find a new “me” and so far that has been slow in coming. I am at least starting to be curious about that that new “me” is going to be like. I was pretty familiar with the old one – but this is going to be something different. I have my fingers crossed in the hopes that I and my friends are happy with the new version.

I have been wondering about the “problem” of too much immigration from the southern countries (Mexico and a lot of others). My first instinct is that there isn’t actually a problem at all, we have a need for the kind of labor and skills that they are willing to provide, and the immigrants are willing to take amazing risks and hardships in order to do it. In addition to assisting to fill our need for “labor” many of the folks that are attempting to immigrate have amazing skills, knowledge, education and points of view that would be extremely valuable in many ways. They are NOT just nuisances, they represent valuable resources just like previous “waves” of immigrants from around the world. There presence enriches us in many ways. They don’t represent a cost to us, they represent valuable resources and the potential for good friends. They won’t be coming if there isn’t an economic, and safety, incentive to do so – it seems pretty obvious that we need each other, we need them and they need us.

But, beyond the question of whether the immigrants are doing good or harm, there is a humanitarian question of why are they coming. When I try to put myself in their shoes I find it almost unimaginable that I would be willing to put myself and my family through what they have to go through to get here unless there were some highly compelling reasons to do so. I can’t fathom what my life would have to be like to give up my home and community, spend all of my savings, expose my family to huge dangers and hardships, traveling for weeks (or months) in order to get to a place where I will be paid almost nothing and be constantly in fear of being found by the police and deported. Not to mention that they know they will be facing fear, hatred and harassment from the citizens of their new country (the USA).

Obviously things are horrible where they are coming from. That horror comes in many forms, starting with poverty, lack of opportunity, corrupt and dangerous authorities (including their police), and the dangers presented by the “drug lords” and drug cartels in whatever country they live in. These all add up to a do-or-die situation for those that finally attempt to enter the USA, with the risk of dying being very high no matter what they chose to do.

One of the reasons for this situation has to do with the presence of the drug lords and vast amounts of profits from the drug business. Without this contribution to their country’s problems the folks that are driven to immigrate would be poor, would have limited opportunities – but would be relatively safe from violence. This condition was their situation until perhaps the mid-1980’s when things really changed for the worse because of the ability for some very bad people to achieve vast wealth by supplying America’s apparently insatiable demand for drugs. This demand results in extremely dangerous and unstable conditions in the supplying countries.

Our out-of-control drug problems are fueling the dangers in “supplying” countries that are largely responsible for causing people to come to the much safer USA at almost any cost. (Even though they are far from being safe here.) This situation will never stop as long as the dangers of staying at their homes are much higher than the dangers associated with attempting to enter the USA illegally. The solution clearly is not tighter security or stronger fences, the solution is to find some way to prevent the reasons that people are leaving their home countries. A big part of that has to do with getting our drug problems under control. In addition, we could help reduce immigration pressures by assisting these countries be more financially secure for the residents. A third part of a solution would be to help these countries reduce the overall level of graft and corruption in their governments.

As long conditions exist that make it worthwhile to attempt to illegally enter the USA it will keep happening and we will remain powerless to stop it. First and foremost we have to find how to stop our fueling the terrible conditions in the immigrant’s home countries through the “market” created by our drug use. So far we have been spectacularly ineffective in doing so. Our efforts of enforcing drug laws in an attempt to stop drug use (the “war on drugs”) doesn’t, hasn’t and won’t work, it just pushes the drug market underground – driving up the profitability of the flow of cash and drugs to the “drug lords” and their co-conspirators (often government agencies and the police). While creating more, harsher, laws is traditionally the first approach that is thought of, it doesn’t work. We need a better solution, one that reduces the drug problem by reducing the conditions that result in people turning to drugs to solve, or hide from, their very real problems created by our dysfunctional society.

That brings us to the solution to the immigration “problem” being one based on our looking internally at ourselves. What is it about our society that is causing us to have such an out of control drug problem? Why are people compelled to use so many drugs? I am convinced that people take so many drugs because it is their escape from overwhelming hardships. A stable and appropriate society doesn’t have these types of drug problems. The problem isn’t with the users, it is with our society/government/economy or a combination of all of them. The “users” are just people reacting as people do to the conditions that they are facing. It isn’t a “failure” of some sort, it is just who we are as people. We have created situations that result in these problems. People react to those situations in very predictable ways, including turning to the use of drugs. The magnitude of this problem is a relatively new situation, one that might have a workable solution if we really take the time and effort, and investment, to solve it.

I am not saying that I know of a solution, I am just pointing out that the problem of immigration isn’t with the immigrants. We need, and should embrace, a “healthy” amount of immigration (whatever that means). The current magnitude of the “problem” exists because we contribute to the creation of the forces that compel people to take such outlandish risks. The solution lies at home (our home – as well as theirs). The advantage of it largely being our problem is that if we can find a workable solution at home, that solution will also be the solution to many of our internal problems. We are faced with the apparently insurmountable drug problem at the same time as we face other apparently insurmountable problems such as global warming and saber rattling by many countries around the globe. The hopeful part is that it seems like the solutions to all of these problems are likely to be the same. It isn’t by use continually stomping out a lot of different fires, it is more like getting one large fire under control. Good luck to us in figuring out what that fire might be, and how to get it under control.

Fixing our economic and social problems at home will go a long way toward resolving the immigration problem by reducing the pressure to escape conditions in the countries of origin – but it will not solve the entire problem. The larger solution will require bolstering the economies of those countries so that we have all benefit from a more prosperous and stable shared (rather than exploited) global economy. That also means working with ourselves to change long standing approaches of economic exploitation of third world (or emerging) economies. Our corporations and government need to work with these countries for the benefit of all, not just the benefit of those that have to power to control.

Now that I am starting to get over the shock of my wife suddenly acquiring an incurable brain cancer that took her life in less than three months, I am beginning a process that feels a bit like the resurrection of the phoenix. I realize that my insignificant life is not comparable to great myths such as the Phoenix, but as those of you who have experienced an event such as this know, there are many similarities. My wife and I had been married for 48 years, being together for over 50. We had finally worked out most of the “marriage bugs” and were looking forward to a couple of decades more when she took ill and was swept away from me.

Her passing was much more than the loss of a friend, a partner, or lover – it was the loss of my identity as well. We had been together so long that we had grown into one – just as many tree trunks do when the contact each other for long enough, they grow together and are no longer two trees living side-by-side, they become one. In some very real and important ways I am no longer the person who I was just a few months ago, that person ceased to exist the moment that she died. Whoever that “Charlie” was in longer.

So, my new task it is rise once again – to create a new “Charlie.” However, I am not interested in creating a “new me” based upon any sort of “plans” or notion of what I want to be. I am more interested in leaving options open, and opening myself to experiences that might be useful for shaping something new and interesting (and who knows, maybe “important” in some way). My promise to my wife on her death bed was that I would continue the good fight to help the world, and that I would do it in a way that brought joy to myself and others. I am searching for ways toward that goal.

One of the things that I have done is to rent a second house not far from here that I can spend part-time in without the ties and constraints that are associated with our home for the last 30 years. I want to force myself to meet new people, experience a new environment and watch to see what grows. Our home in the country is very nice, quite beautiful … and very isolated. It is easy to spend days without seeing or talking to anyone, seeing and talking to others requires action and time. My new experimental living situation is located in a pretty, old fashioned “tourist” town. Stepping out of the door always results in encounters with others – it is a bit of the opposite from my current home. However, I am not particularity interested in encountering the tourists because they are into their “vacation thing”, I am interested in getting to know some of the locals on a more personal level. I picked on this town because it is where I grew up, leaving shortly after graduating from high school (notice I said “graduated from high school” not “graduated high school” – a hint of my old age I suppose). I am curious if something will grow from those old ties and old memories. It is an experiment at this point.

Almost 20 years ago my wife and I purchased a camper that slides into the bed of a pickup to do a bit of travel. We used it a few times, but mostly it just sat in the back yard beckoning us to take some time and travel. An indication of our use is that my 2006 Chevrolet pickup has 60,000 miles on it. Finally we aged out of the camper when my wife could no longer get into the bed over the pickup cab, and had a hard time negotiating the steps to get inside. We were contemplating selling the camper and purchasing a camper van with the intent of traveling around the USA when she died. My instinct when she died was to sell my camper, but then realized that while she couldn’t use the camper, I still can.

A overwhelming reaction when my wife died was get me away from HERE. Get me out of this place, get me away from all of the “house ghosts” (cloths in the closest, tooth brush in the bathroom, pots and pans and dishes, knickknacks on the shelves … everything around me). That has settled down a bit, I am comfortable living with these ghosts (but haven’t had the courage to change or move anything yet). Now I find myself in a place that was good with two people sharing each other’s time and interests – but now feels empty and lonely. Most of my future visions, plans and goals were related to OUR visions, our plans and goals, our interests. That no longer applies.

I began to wonder if perhaps I should continue with the plan to tour the county using the pickup and camper. A “Travels of Charlie” rather than “Travels with Charley” sort of adventure in the spirit of John Steinbeck. I don’t expect a written result from the trip (I have no intention of writing a book), but perhaps the experiences of an extended solo journey into unknown lands might be similar. I have been doing a bit of reading in preparation of this adventure. Of course I had to read Travels with Charley. I then stumbled upon the book Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon that is another narrative of a long solo journey around the USA. The two stories have a lot of similarities, and many differences besides that they were on different routes. The personal experiences were quite different, but both life changing. These trips were not particularly dangerous, but certainly allowing for a lot of time in introspection and contemplation. My daughter gave me yet another travel book as a Christmas present called On the Plain of Snakes by Paul Theroux. Theroux was vastly more adventuresome, and more dangerous, by taking a solo drive through rural Mexico during the Trump Presidency.

Each of the trips chronicled in these three books were the result of personal crises driving the authors in search of something, something that was known and unknowable at the beginning. These three books have caused me to wonder about the purpose of my proposed trip. I think this might be important because it might change some key aspects of the logistics of the trip. For example, if it is a “sight seeing” trip taking me to the various wonders of the country, I better be making plans and reservations now because most of these “hot spots” are booked far in advance. It is no longer feasible to just show up at a national park and expect a camping spot, and the hotels/motels are also booked and unavailable. It would be a planned trip with an itinerary and schedules. If it is a trip to parks to see the natural wonders, then perhaps my camper will suffice – but it will probably mean often cooking and eating by myself at a picnic table in a forest somewhere. (My experience is that I don’t like to do that very much, so I find places where I can purchase a meal.) A solution to the lonely part would be to take another person. A nice lady friend has already come forth to let me know she would really like to join me. Of course, that will totally change the nature of the trip.

If I am not particularly interested in seeing the wonders of nature, then perhaps the entire camping aspect is not necessary. Maybe a car trip with stays at hotels and motels would be better. A car would certainly be less expensive to drive, and easier to get around. However renting rooms and eating in restaurants would be MUCH more expensive than staying in parks and cooking in the camper. Perhaps I can’t afford to make it a car trip, or perhaps that limits the available time too much. However, at this point I am not willing to select based upon price, but rather based upon intent.

My intent is no longer just to “get the hell out of here” – but something more, something related to forming a new me. I don’t want to just get away, nor do I want to just go see pretty and interesting sights, I want to explore and grow. But explore and grow what, and for what reason? Is it just a desire to taste tastier things, or have more “adventuresome” adventures? Am I looking for eye candy and stokes to my ego, perhaps even someone to hug and cuddle now and then? Could be, but I don’t think so. I think it is more along the lines of my promise to my dying wife (and myself) that I will continue to do good things and have fun. (Having fun not in the sense of immediate pleasure like a carnival ride or an amazing dinner, but fun in the sense of enjoying life knowing that I am working toward making the world a better place in my little, inconsequential, way. This kind of fun is more like a satisfaction of life rather than a short term titillation.)

It feels like I need to go “out there” and find out things from people. I feel compelled to find out who they are, what they think, what is important to them – how do they visualize the world? I could do that by going to parks and special places, talking to those that are doing the same. However, that would result in me talking to travelers, vacationers, those with the time and means to do so. That does not connect me to the local communities. I would find something about the world view of tourists, but perhaps miss the big part. The important part. Right now, as I sit here today, I am really curious about what the others think, their world view, their worries and proposed solutions. The country seems very divided these days, but I don’t believe it. I think we are just not listening to each others – we aren’t hearing. I want to go listen.

To do this listening I need to find a way to find people to listen to. I think that is not in the parks, I think that is in diners, bars, shopping centers, sidewalks, tiny little museums, odd little local “special places.” Those are best found on foot in communities. It means getting out of the car and walking around where people might be. It probably means staying in some pretty seedy places, and maybe some pretty expensive ones. Maybe it means sleeping out on a cot or in a sleeping bag once in awhile – but then finding meals where people go to eat.

I spoke to some of my Buddhist friends this morning about this goal and worried that it would be my finding a lot of things, but not sharing them – so what would be the point, it would just me once again filling myself up with nothing. Their response was that I am a social person, a talker and that while I might not write a book or a paper on the subjects, I WILL talk to many people about what I found. Not only that, but they are already excited to hear what it is that I find out there. Maybe that enough.

As I write this I realize that I am going toward car travel rather than camper travel, going toward staying in towns rather than parks, and going solo rather than with a partner. Theroux purchased an obviously “used” car for his excursion to avoid standing out – maybe I should too. However, I think my older Subaru is probably just fine for the States – maybe not for deep Mexico.

While sitting in my hot tub this morning watching the sun brightening the dawn hours I seem to have slipped a bit down that old rabbit hole. I don’t think there is any value in what I found down that little hole, but I am going to write about it just so I don’t totally forget the thoughts.

I was contemplating the fact that our eyes are sensitive enough to register a single photon of light, which I think is is pretty amazing. I noticed that as the sky brightened, the stars all disappeared except for a couple of exceptionally bright ones that I could spot, but then lose again if I moved my eye. After a few minutes those disappeared too, sort of. The “sort of” part was that I could still catch glimpses of stars far from the center of my field of view, off to the sides. When I shifted my eyes to ‘look’ at them, I could no longer see them. This because of the different sensitivities between the rods and cones in the eye. Rods do good with dim black and white, cones are better at brighter colors.

Among these observations I found the rabbit hole. I drifted off into wondering what a single photon is and realized that it isn’t a particle of any sort, rather it is a single wave. Of course then the next question was “what is waving?” And the obvious answer is that the universe is waving. The universe is a four dimensional (or more) shape in what we call space-time (ST). The space time is filled with fields, at least gravity and electromagnetic fields, very likely many more. The single photon is a wave in the electromagnetic field. Simple, no problem with this.

However, Einstein postulated that the speed of light is a constant from every point of view. That is a really odd thing, if we are moving within the universe, moving relative to the ST axis, then if a photon is a wave on the field its speed should vary depending upon the motion of the observer. This is the “mind twist” the sits in the middle of general relativity. The rat hole that I fell into this morning is that means that nothing (no thing) moves relative to ST. If we (the observers here in our hot tub in the back yard) aren’t moving relative to the fields that are somehow “pinned” to ST, then of course the speed of light is a constant for everything because nothing is moving relative to any other “things” from the vantage point of ST. It is all stationary – sort of.

This “sort of” is slightly different because ST is expanding, it is getting bigger but not in the sense of getting bigger dimensionally, it is getting bigger timely (actually space-timely). In 1931 an astronomer named Edmin Hubble proposed that the frequency (and wavelength) of light changes as it travels through space. The further it travels, the longer the wavelength becomes – providing a nice measure of distance if you happen to know the wavelength of light at its source. Handily, we have a few standards that might fit this criteria (assuming things work the same everywhere). The hydrogen alpha line is an example of one. We know the frequency/wavelength up close, and we assume that it would be the same “up close” at a distant location. Because there is so much hydrogen in the universe it is bright and readily identifiable. What astronomers noticed was that this easily identifiable feature shows up at different wavelengths depending upon how far the source is from us. The further the source is, the longer (redder) the wavelength is – giving a nice measuring stick for distance.

My rabbit hole adventure revolved around the realization that the reason that the wavelength gets longer is that the wave has been waving for a longer time, and that while the wave was racing across the electromagnetic field that is “pinned” to ST space got bigger and therefore the wavelet got longer. It is because the universe had been expanding everywhere while the wave was making its “speed of light” traverse to our eye (or telescope).

That seems obvious, and perhaps was way back when I was struggling through my physics major – but this morning it suddenly because intuitively obvious, not just logically obvious. But that still leaves a little problem of nothing (no thing) moving with respect to ST (and therefore the electromagnetic field pinned to the universal ST). Light doesn’t “travel” – there is no thing traveling. Light waves across (or through) the field that is stationary in ST. Since we, and everything else, is stationary (in some dimension other than our normal 3-dimensional point of view) the speed of that wavelet is always the same for everything.

All of this seems to make sense – but it leaves a little nagging question behind; “How can everything be stationary when things clearly move about?” From what point of view, in what kind of multidimensional universe, can it appear that things are moving when in the reality they are not? What is moving if it is not the “things”? While this sounds like a crazy question (and perhaps it is), it doesn’t sound any crazier than to say that the speed of light is a constant that does not change due to the relative motions of the source and receiver. THAT makes zero sense to me in exactly the same way that the idea that no things move relative to the universe and hence relative to each others.

So there is my rabbit hole. The speed of light being constant and all of the weird things described in Special and General Relativity make perfect sense if the universe is stationary but expanding.

California’s intense rain storms finally brought problems to my home. I own a “big” lot (a little over 5 acres) with an old “orchard” of eucalyptus trees that were planted around 1905. The trees were planted in rows to form a 25 acre “forest” intended to be harvested and sold to the Ford Motor Company for the front axles of the soon to be marketed Model T Ford motor car. The Model T didn’t use wooden axles, but it was an attempt by a local entrepreneur to be prepared for a new market. (I heard about this scheme personally from the entrepreneur’s granddaughter, so am tempted to believe the story.) Eventually this forest was cut up into home sites, some 2.5 acres and some 5 acres. I purchased a five acre plot in 1991. Most of the trees have been removed to make way for our house, a small barn (now my shop) and pasture when we had animals (horses for my daughter, sheep for my wife, goats to eat the weeds.)

Last Sunday I was awoken by a text message from my neighbor asking if I heard the load boom in the backyard. I was asleep and missed it. However, in the morning the source of the noise was obvious – my barn was sporting a very large tree out of it’s roof. A 20 inch diameter eucalyptus tree had fallen onto my barn, camper and pickup. The limbs reached over the top of the barn and were resting on the roof-top solar array. At first glance it looked like a disaster.

However, after a morning of cutting and cleaning away the smaller branches and leaves, it turned out that the solar array was unharmed, as were the camper and pickup. I still can’t determine of the roof was damaged because the tree is still sitting on it.

The shed roof took the brunt of the problem, and is still holding up much of the weight of the tree – protecting the barn roof. It doesn’t look like it in the picture, but the crooked part of the trunk is resting on the shed roof. The three 4″x4″ posts holding up the edge of the shed roof were driven straight down into the ground about 24″ like big nails. The tree was very “bushy” and had smaller limbs reaching far beyond the ridge of the roof, and out over the top of the camper on the left. You couldn’t see the barn through the limbs and leaves. Those were all removed in order to lighten the loads on the barn and roof. I think it is going to take a crane or something similar to get this tree off of the barn without causing further damage – the earliest that can happen is perhaps in two or three days because my tree is just one of hundreds in the area.

Luckily it appears that most of the cost of removal and repair will be covered by insurance – I finally get something back from twenty years of paying premiums. I will have another year’s worth of firewood out of this nice big tree.

I have been wondering about the nature of grief. This is a very “hot topic” for me right now because my wife died unexpectedly toward the end of October. It has been a terrible roller coaster since then – sometimes I can ignore my feelings, but then they come roaring back at the most unexpected times. My reactions and actions are mostly a big surprise to me, I don’t know what I expected to experience, but it hasn’t been that – whatever “that” is.

An interesting part of this is that it appears to be so much like other people’s experiences. Instead of “that’s odd” I often get “oh yes, that is what happened/happens to me” when I share my experiences with others who have encountered the “existential” loss of another. By this I mean someone that we have “bonded” so closely with that another that our individual selves have somehow evaporated. My experience with my marriage has been that during the past 20 years or so there wasn’t so my “me” and “you” as “us”. In many ways I had become her and she had become me, and we liked it that way. I didn’t lose my sense of individuality, but instead took on a personality and experience of life that was MUCH fuller, much more meaningful, and much more fun. It took us a few decades to reach that place in our relationship, but it finally happened. Before this happened, I was “me” and she was “her” – but eventually that dichotomy vanished – we were we.

Losing her wasn’t just losing a partner, it was in some sort of very real sense the death of myself, the “me” that I had become “we.” Now I am searching for the next “me” – not particularly with a new person, but someone that is really, really different from the we that I had become accustomed to. When I try to describe this to people, those who have a deep loss agree with me. We end up sharing our experiences, and often share tears. This can be because of a death, or because of a divorce – that doesn’t matter so much because the experience is one of losing a loved one, but more importantly lose “the loved one” – what we had come to believe was “our-self.”

What seems odd to me is that I knew almost nothing about this before I experienced it. Nobody talks about it, almost no books or articles talk about it – it is almost as if the idea that we experience a loss of self, and experience a loss of our place in the universe is taboo. We hear a lot about the five (or four or seven or whatever) stages of grief, we hear about how it will moderate and finally not be such an important emotion, we hear lots of things. We hear that eventually we will be able to feel joy when recalling our lost partner. But, we almost never hear that we will become an entirely different person. We don’t hear that the old “me” will need to be replaced by a new one – whether we like it or not.

This evening a neighbor told me her story of getting an old Corvette and just driving, and driving and driving. Searching for what? I think she was searching for a new “me”. My first instinct when my wife died was to get a trip on a cruise ship to Alaska so I could just sit it bow of the ship and watch the world come to me and fade away. Unfortunately, it was the off season and I couldn’t get ride. I just wanted to sit, think of nothing in particular, and let my body find another “me”.

I wish I had known about some of the things that I have been going through. I wish I had known I was going to be so disoriented that I couldn’t keep track of time or place, so confused as to not be able to make sense of what I was reading to distract myself, so fragile that I could break down in tears at any time and any place. I wish I had know that I was going to have to create a new “me” from scratch, and that might take years (or decades). We never talk about the actual experience, we talk about the “safe” topics, but almost never the actual ones until we have experienced it when perhaps (if we are lucky) we meet someone who is willing to share the “real” experience of grief.

I came across an interesting quote that expresses my idea that making dramatic changes to the way that society operates doesn’t necessarily take a lot of energy or work. Unfortunately, I failed to note the attribution for the quote – so it is I have to apologize to the author (whoever they were). The quote had to do with the difficult task of projecting the future of mankind and society.

“Any prognosis much consider that men can change their angle of vision and therefore change the future.” – unknown

It appears that mankind may have entered up a period that we are creating an existential (in the sense of “existing”) threat to itself because of the high potential of the outcomes of having exceeded the carrying capacity* of the physical world. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of earth in a number of related and interdependent ways. Perhaps the biggest problem is that our population has grown so much that there may be no means of sustaining it into the future. However, it isn’t as simple as just increasing the number of people, the increased number of people is related to our cleverness in finding ways to expand the available resources in order to support the population explosion. However, in order to accomplish this we have had to increase our use of natural resources even more. It is an escalating spiral where growing more food, having more energy, making more goods, providing better heath care, and others results in the ability to have more surviving children, increasing the population. Providing the increased population even more of these benefits feeds back to create an acceleration of the population, and an exponentially accelerating increase of the use of natural resources.

It appears that we might be reaching a limit where pollution in many forms will have the cumulative effect of causing a collapse of the bounty of the earth. Some well known examples are: poisonous chemicals in the air and water, global warming due to green house gases, collapse of fisheries due to ocean acidification, sea level rises due to melting glaciers and the expansion of water as it warms.

The point is that humanity seems to have painted itself into a corner with no obvious ways out. The earth will be fine, after all it is just a big ball of rock and dirt – it doesn’t care about what sort of life exists on it. In fact, it is just rock and dirt and doesn’t “care” about anything. Life will undoubtedly continue, it has demonstrated an amazing resilience in the face of many disastrous events in the past. The life forms will likely change, but that will eventually happen no matter what – that is what evolution does. However, in the short term it might get a bit uncomfortable for people. Humanity will probably survive whatever the future will bring, but it is almost certainly undergo great disruptions and pain in the process. This doesn’t matter in the grand, celestial point of view – does matter to those of us who will experience it.

Assuming we haven’t already gone past “the tipping point” where there is no possibility of avoiding a catastrophe, what is it that keeps us from changing in ways that could avoid that outcome? It seems to be related to a point of view, or as mentioned in quote, the “angle of vision.” We continue to act as if short term gain is worth more than existence of the species. We continue to act as if “our” children will do fine in the future, even though it is obvious that “their” children will likely die horrible deaths because of malnutrition and disease. We seem to think that we can close our boarders in the face of billions of people worldwide being forced from their homes because of climate changes and rising sea levels. Our view is that growth and increasing is an inherent desirable and good thing; that increased usage of energy translates to prosperity; that it is appropriate and expected to take as much as possible from the environment and available resources if this results in increased short term profits to a few without taking into account the cost to others that don’t share in those profits.

What if all of those assumptions about what it means to be “successful” are recognized as merely being our current angle of vision? What if we could change that a little bit so that “success” translates to making a better long term future for all, rather than a better short term presence for ourselves? What if family size and reproduction rates were judged by how help future generations rather than being a sign of ??? (Actually I can’t imagine what good thing a large family is a size of, so I can’t finish that sentence.)

What if all that is required is a change in humanity’s “angle of vision”? What might the new angle look like? Is there a different way to look at the world that results in our staying within the carrying capacity of our earth while enjoying the good things that we have come to expect? Maybe that includes a new definition of “good things” – perhaps changing ideas from “having a big enough heater to keep us warm” to “being warm enough.” The first vision is that one solution works, the second vision doesn’t constrain the approach.

While this seems trivial and obvious, it doesn’t appear to be so. I am currently reading a book by Bill Gates called, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”. It is all about the need to produce more power, using more efficient (and more profitable) means so that more giant corporations will be interested in investing. The book assumes we need more power, owned by fewer people, generating more profits. Always looked to growth as the solution. It doesn’t spend much time talking about achieving the goals (warmth, coolth, food, transportation, etc) using fewer resources and less energy. It is focused on the benefits of “more” instead of “enough”.

What is the new point of view where we can all realize that we are wealthy once we need no more?

*Carrying capacity: noun: the maximum population (as of deer) that an area will support without undergoing deterioration. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carrying%20capacity. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.

There is a major, dangerous, misunderstanding of the relationship between greed and wealth.  For those whose net worth falls within the bottom 50% or so (in the USA this includes those with a net worth less than about $120,000) the definition of “wealthy” seems to be having a net worth of more than a million dollars (“millionaires”).  Perhaps this has escalated to more like $2,000,000 given the recent inflation of housing prices and other things. For this group of people, anyone with over perhaps $20,000,000 is incomprehensibly wealthy and therefore they must be “greedy” (otherwise why would they have accumulated so much wealth?). 

The idea of “greed” or “greedy” describes an insatiable appetite for something, often money, power or both. This definition does not include the evaluation of how much a person has, it is referring to the insatiable desire to have MORE.  It seems to be based upon an opinion of one’s self that their “worth” as a human is based upon how much stuff (or power) they have.  When judging themselves they always come up short, so they always need more.  Greed has nothing to do with how much a person has accumulated, be it very a small amount resulting in living in poverty or very large fortune and living in grandeur. 

Greed is a state of mind.  Several traditions refer to this unfortunate person as the hungry ghost. It is not possible to determine if a person is greedy or not based upon their accumulated wealth, or lack thereof.  Perhaps greed, or generosity, can be judged by observing a person’s actions – but even that is not guaranteed. As they say about a lot of things, “it all depends.”

I think this is an important question because it is related to our understanding of the “proper” way to treat capitalism, private property, and charity. Important questions for society are, “How much should a person be able to accumulate, and how much poverty should they be forced to endure?”  Does Society (meaning the combined opinions of us all) have a responsibility to control either of these limits?  We speak as if compassion dictates that there should be some sort of bottom “safety net” (even though there are many very large holes in that net).  What is almost never discussed is the possibility for a “cap” of some sort on how much a person should be allowed to accumulate.  In the 1950’s a type of “cap” was partially implemented by very steeply progressive income tax rates with a top tax bracket of 91%. Of course, since there weren’t many in this income bracket and the presence of many “loop holes” in the tax codes, the upper income bracket that didn’t actually result in higher income taxes for anyone, but it was in interesting concept.  What it did accomplish was a re-definition of “income” versus other types of revenue, such as “capital gains” to avoid being in the high tax bracket. A way to avoid “income” taxes is to avoid having an “income,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding the benefits of an income.  

Assuming that “greed” isn’t necessarily related to income or accumulated wealth, and allowing for the possibility that wealthy people aren’t any more prone to being greedy than poor people, what could be causing some people to become very rich?  If, perchance, they aren’t driven by greed – what are they being driven by?

What if the problems with the great income disparity and the associated insanity that is driving us to environment ruin and wars are just the consequences of (or symptoms of) shared opinions?  Maybe those dysfunctional opinions are simple, such as the idea that “economic growth” is always the best goal (it is always “good”), and that it is our duty to make as much as possible.  What would happen if we changed those opinions to others? 

An interesting thing about opinions is that they are not real, there is no THING needed to change opinions, they are just dreams in our mind – they are our best (or current) guess about how things work.  Opinions can be, and often are, changed in the blink of an eye – no natural resources, no energy, and no greenhouse gases required.  If so, what might these shared opinions be, and how could they be changed to something more sustainable, equitable, beautiful … fun?  How can we do good and have fun without resorting to war, poverty or the destruction of the environment?

Some shared opinions include: (1) Growth is good, normal and required for a successful economy. (2) In order for an economy to work, everyone needs to be striving to maximize their returns on their investment/work/effort.  The idea is that a healthy economy is based upon a give-and-take where goods and services are traded on the “invisible hand” of supply and demand with everyone having the responsibility to strive to get the best “deal” as is possible.

What if supply and demand mentality is the shared opinion that causes the plethora of problems we see all around us?  What if we changed that opinion to the opinion that all development, changes and actions need to be based upon something else, perhaps achieving consilience in our decision making processes? 

Consilience

In science and history, consilience is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can “converge” on strong conclusions. That is, when multiple sources of evidence are in agreement, the conclusion can be very strong even when none of the individual sources of evidence is significantly so on its own. (Wikipedia)

What if everyone impacted by decisions had to agree that it is in their best interests to do so? What if things had to be desired, affordable, safe, environmentally sustainable, in alignment with evolution, and otherwise an agreed upon “good thing”, something at least as good without it and preferably better.  In this model workers would have to be protected and compensated fairly, profits would remain “reasonable”, prices would be “affordable”, the environment would be protected and improved, etc.  What if this had to be a unanimous decision rather than one based upon who has the greatest power, or possibly a simple majority resulting in everyone being in agreement that it is for their better good?

I realize that this is a rather utopian, unreachable goal – the organisms on the earth did not evolve to maximize every living entity.  Some get eaten and some eat, but this has evolved in a way that is balanced on the large scale even if not quit so balanced at the individual level.  What humans are currently doing is not balanced at any level, either for the individuals or the global community of organisms – or the global environment.  However, I think it could make a huge difference even if it can’t actually be accomplished, just using this idea as a goal might be sufficient.   I don’t offer it as a prescription, but rather as an alternate goal to always attempting to maximize profits.  I think of this as a goal closer to the idea of “first, do no harm.” Of course, many decisions don’t have a “no harm” alternative, including the alternative of doing nothing.  So at some level there is a risk assessment and acceptance aspect to this approach.   

Conceptually, informed individuals are the ones to decide if the risk is acceptable.  However, there is a major problem built into this in that the scope of doing harm is far greater than directly harming people, and even when the subject is limited to individuals they are seldom informed, and individuals do not represent all of the people impacted by a decision.  In a practical sense, proxies must be used to represent those without a voice (such as the environment beyond just humans), those who have insufficient access to information, and those who don’t know how to understand or interpret the information that they do have.  “Informed decisions” making that depends upon those being impacted is not possible.   Therefore, simple risk acceptance approaches are limited to an extremely small subset of the decisions. 

Our current approach of acting as if anything is acceptable as long as it violates no laws has been shown over the course of human history to not work.  For example, the extremely low cost of petroleum based fuels is the result of a “free” resource (buried oil), fact that the price of oil does not include the total costs created by things such as pipeline leaks, air pollution and global warming.  If the price of these fuels included the true cost that society pays for their use (now and in the future), then they would not be economically viable and we would have found other, less costly, solutions.  Expecting laws and regulations to properly manage risks, degradation and human suffering is a fool’s errand.  They are always too late, to limited, and too easy to violate.  Expecting regulations to achieve timing and correct outcomes from the point of view of universal consilience results in an expensive and frustrating exercise of continually chasing one’s tail. I am not suggesting that we should remove all regulations and let industry and individuals do whatever they would like, I am suggestion that they are a necessary minimum but that meeting them does NOT necessarily mean that the proposed “project” is acceptable, cost effective, or desirable from the point of view of the global (or local) community.

Achieving universal consilience will be difficult and time consuming.  It will undoubtedly put restrictions on the ability to make large profits. One big problem is that it depends upon the “good will” of those involved in making decisions.  That is where the idea of having a new “opinion” comes into play.  In order to work, the decision makers all need to be of the opinion that the goal is to maximize the benefits and minimizing the costs, to all affected parties.  It won’t work if it is a struggle for everyone to get the most that they can, it only works if it is a struggle to find a solution the benefits all. 

Science can help assess potential impacts, and help understand the associated risks/benefits, which inform the process of achieving consilience.  However, science can never know enough to cover all of the important considerations.  Science does well with those things that science knows about in terms of measurements, data collection, theories and calculations/predictions, but these only work in few very narrow areas of consideration.  Not only that, but because science is basically the creation and checking of theories – it is often wrong in the details, and sometimes wrong in the big picture as well.  That doesn’t mean it is useless – it just means that the answers should be taken with a grain of salt – they provide the best understanding that we have at that moment in time, subject to change should new information be found.  My point is that if we are to solve the apparently existential problems facing humanity we need to find a new criteria for deciding what to do other than maximizing profits for those making the decisions.  We need to find a way to come up with a new opinion – an opinion that moves us toward globally sustainable and fair solutions, rather than what has been the norm for hundreds of years in many cultures (but not all of them).  There are many, many examples of cultures that have successfully operated under the opinion that sustainability and equity are the obvious criteria for decision making.  It is within the ability of the human animal to operate in this way, we just need to change our opinion of what is best and “good”. 

This morning I enjoyed my pre-dawn hot tub in a gentle, cool rain. I had on my new felt hat, which kept my head dry – and the rest of me was in the water so I couldn’t get any wetter. The clouds were glowing from the reflection of lights in town, just enough to show the silhouette of a large, leafless, Valley Oak tree just to the west of my hot tub. A large evergreen Live Oak tree formed a dripping canopy above my head, converting a gentle mist into large drops of water that splashed around me in the hot tub.

I was rather transfixed by the beauty of these two trees, marveling that while they appeared to be as stable as the rocks in the garden, they are actually very much alive and full of the mysterious “life force” animating all beings on the earth. In their own way they “experience” life – perhaps sleeping in the case of the deciduous Valley Oak, or in a dreamy wakeful state of the Live Oak. In any case, they are alive, growing, making and using energy, fighting off predators and disease, healing wounds, reproducing and perhaps enjoying life. It became clear that they were just like me, perhaps just operating at a different pace. It appears that live moves more slowly for them, but it is always moving and always active. When they are awake and the sun shines, their leaves and green parts make sugar that is stored for later use. During this part of the day they make and release oxygen into the atmosphere. At night, they are still awake and working, but using the stored sugars plus oxygen to grow through the night. Luckily for us they make more oxygen than they use – our lives depend upon it.

As I sat in the warm water marveling about these two great trees, my attention turned to the many other trees and plants in the area. A neighbor shares space with a big, bushy palm tree that seemed to be reveling in the rains that have been so long in coming to California. As the day grew brighter at the approach of dawn it was clear that all of the plants were greener, freshers, more flexible and perhaps happier than they appeared a couple of weeks ago before the rains settled in for the winder. I don’t know if plants can experience “happiness” or “joy” – but it sure looked like it to me.

I wonder if they have an “experience”, I wonder if they have anything approaching “awareness” at any level; or are they just chemically powered machines? I even wonder if they are separate from us, or if they are truly an integral part of something like a larger, global, organism described by all of DNA/RNA on this tiny blue ball we call home. Do the trees “experience” this shared life similarly to my other organs, such as my liver? Is my liver alive? Sort of… but it is not independent of the rest of “me”. The same applies to all of my body parts – they are clearly alive, clearly react to their environment, but only “experience” anything as a part of the whole. There “experience” seems to be associated with my mind’s experiences, not theirs. Are they “sentient” or just part of a sentient being?

According to one source I found on the Internet, sentient describes a being that can feel pleasure and pain. Clearly, not all parts of my being share in those experiences. I am not even sure if my liver, or hand, can experience pain. They can certainly be damaged, injured or become diseased – but it seems that the “feeling” of pain is somewhere else, it seems that it is my mind. If that is true, then the “me” that is made up of all of these non-sentient body parts is really just the part of me that has feelings/emotions. If life on earth is really one big individual composed of all of the individual parts, then those parts of this “individual” (Gaia?) that experience feelings creates sentience for all of the other parts. There is no more difference between me and the trees as there is between me and my liver (or brain). In that case it seems to imply that the entire earth is a sentient being, and it behooves us to treat is accordingly. We are not separate, we are all part and parcel to the whole – the whole being everything on this little blue ball. For us to remain healthy and experience pleasure more than pain, we need to take care of all of the parts.

A few days ago I had a rather irritating encounter with one of a friend that I have known for several years. A group of friends came to visit me and go to lunch. I offered to buy lunch for the group at a “nice” restaurant in the area. All went well until one of the ladies started complaining that I only bought one bottle of wine for the group (of three). (I had offered to purchase whatever they would like to eat or drink.) She thought I should have purchased three bottles. Obviously that was silly since we all knew that as these folks were almost certainly only going to have a glass each. I bought a separate glass for myself because she ordered a bottle of rose which I don’t particularly like. They were all free to order whatever, and how much, they wanted. I thought it was rather odd to accuse me of being stingy with the wine given that I offered them to pick anything on the menu – which included some rather pricey wines.

Things seemed to go alright until such time as the meal was finished. I picked up the bill as I had promised, but she insisted on adding a few dollar bills as a tip. I thought that was odd, and told her she needn’t do that – I was treating them. However, using a stage whisper, she explained to one of the others that she did this because “I am wealthy and wealthy people never leave good tips”! Perhaps I didn’t leave a big enough tip, but she had no way of knowing and it wasn’t something I normally advertise. I tipped almost 25% for the meal that I bought for her, which seemed generous to me. Besides, she couldn’t see how much I had paid – she just made the idea that I hadn’t tipped enough because she is convinced that I am stingy.

She spent the rest of the time during the rest of the afternoon insulting me about how selfish I am because I haven’t given away all of my money to poor people such as herself. She insisted that I don’t give sufficiently to charity and am never generous but am always greedy. Her reasoning was that she decided that I am too rich Therefore, she assumes that I am always stingy, and therefore I am a terrible human being; even though I recently gave her $1000 so she could get hearing aids and had just paid for her lunch. It was just weird. Perhaps I am too stingy, and perhaps I am not generous when I should be – but for her to launch into such a extreme bit of insults was pretty odd. She started it before she had a glass of wine, so she wasn’t reacting to too much alcohol – she apparently had created a mindset about how horrible I am because I have saved up enough money to retire (I hope). I would have been happy to discuss the whole thing if she could have listend, but she wouldn’t (or couldn’t).

I am not at all sure whether I am “wealthy” or not. I worked hard for many years as an independent engineer, saving money with the goal of having sufficient investments to allow me to retire without having to rely upon charity or the government for my support. My planned budget is designed to be empty by the time I die at perhaps age 100. I include a rather large “gifting” component in my budget that gives me a little discretion should the future bring unforeseen expenses. My “wealth” is in place of a retirement plan because I have always worked as an independent consultant and therefore have no retirement plan beyond Social Security.

I don’t think many people with retirement benefits (from the government or otherwise) realize how valuable those plans are and how large an investment is required to achieve that level of security. For example, it takes more than $3,000,000 in low risk investments to achieve a retirement equivalent to a typical $100,000 a year retirement plan in California. I suppose poor folks consider an investment portfolio of $3,000,000 to be wealthy, or a budget of $100,000 a year to be exorbitant (and perhaps it is). An investment sufficient to achieve an adequate income stream when needed during retirement years carries considerable risk. An income of $100,000 per year in California is considerably less than can be achieved by a typical two-income couple for white collar workers and other professions with a single wage earner doing things such as firemen and police officers.

I am not sure where the break between “normal”, “poor” or “wealthy” lies. Personally, I don’t consider myself wealthy, I consider myself to be adequately funded to finish my life without having to depend upon others. If I ended up with left over “wealth” upon my death, that has been directed to assist my grandchildren (or perhaps great grandchildren) in getting an education and having a little “nest egg” to start their lives as adults. It certainly won’t be sufficient to cover their expenses, but it might be enough to help with something like a down payment on a home should they desire to purchase a house. Gifting any more than I currently am doing would not be prudent because it would leave me at risk of financial disaster, with the result of depending upon others for my support. I worked and saved for fifty-five years with the intention of not becoming a burden to my loved ones, or the State.

Obviously, at some point accumulating sufficient money can certainly make a person “well-to-do” or maybe even “wealthy. I am not exactly sure where this point of being “wealthy” is to be found. Perhaps it is when you have enough money that there is no longer a reasonable way to use, or lose, it. Another measure might be conspicuous consumption. For example, yesterday I noticed a brand new Bentley automobile in town – maybe this implies that the owner is “wealthy”. I certainly can’t afford to drive a $300,000 car – but I don’t know anything else about that person so can’t really can’t judge his situation. Clearly it is possible to spend down very large amounts of money in a short period of time, many professional ball players have demonstrated that in rather spectacular fashion. I don’t know how you can spend over $100,000,000 – but they seem to figure it out on a regular basis.

The issue of some people judging people to be “bad” because they have accumulated a lot of money is interesting. I think it offers a bit of insight into a particular set of prejudices that people create for themselves. I find it to be quite common for people to assume that if you managed to gather enough money to retire without using government subsidies or charity you must be nasty and greedy (even when you happen to be giving them money to help them along). My “friend” was absolutely convinced that my only concern is to get as much money as possible so I can die wealthy. She is convinced that I don’t donate to any good causes, don’t contribute to Society, and am just mean and nasty because of my overwhelming greed. Perhaps I am mean and nasty (I have friends that don’t seem to agree with that idea), and perhaps I don’t donate as much as she would if she had my resources. I agree that I might have these types of faults – but I really don’t think they were evident in this situation. .

It is unfortunate that the topics of income, savings, wealth, financial security are taboo in our culture. That taboo means that we can’t share our experiences and rationales, which means that we all stay firmly planted in our pre-conceived set of prejudices and judgments. This keeps us pointed to others as being “at fault”, that the others are the cause of whatever ills we are thinking about. It keeps us from understanding from a wide variety of points of view, and keeps us from creating solutions. There are two things here- one, perceptions: we see the world and people, not the way they truly are, but the way WE are. The way WE think we are (or pretend to be) and the way we REALLY are